Senior Director Pipeline Project Management, Global Health and ViiV

  • GlaxoSmithKline
  • Jul 27, 2025
Full time Executive

Job Description

Site Name: UK - Hertfordshire - Stevenage, Belgium-Wavre, UK - London - New Oxford Street, USA - Massachusetts - Waltham, USA - Pennsylvania - Upper Providence
Posted Date: Jul
Senior Director, Pipeline Project Management, Global Health and ViiV

Are you interested in driving decisions and enabling teams to choose the best path and deliver medicines to patients faster than ever in Global Health and ViiV while managing a team of project managers in this field? If so, this Senior Director, Pipeline Project Management role is an exciting move to explore.

Job Purpose

In GSK, the Pipeline Project Manager (PPM) will act as the 'COO' of the asset and will partner with project leads to help teams plot the best course, then accelerate through complexity and uncertainty with no compromise to quality or safety. This Senior Director PPM is a project-focused position and a leadership position leading a group of PPMs managing Global Health and ViiV projects.

Pipeline Project Managers compose a community of drug/vaccine development and commercialization experts applying industry-leading project management practices to plan and deliver pipeline projects with industry-leading performance:
  • Apply a holistic perspective and broad knowledge of drug/vaccine development to help Research and Development teams test ideas and optimize the strategy.
  • Empower teams to challenge convention, manage uncertainty, and accelerate delivery of critical milestones.
  • Continuously assess progress and clear the way for uninterrupted focus on the critical path.
  • Build high-performing teams by cultivating trust and outcomes-focused ways of working.
  • Share learnings and proven practices across PPM so that we learn and grow as an organization.
The PPM can also operate at program level, as when a commercialization team oversees multiple projects under the umbrella of a single program strategy.

The Senior Director has demonstrated success managing strategically important, top priority R&D pipeline projects and applies strategic drug/vaccine development and leadership skills to facilitate successful outcomes for Medicine/Vaccine development. The Senior Director is seen as a thought leader in project management, promoting and helping to establish best practices for project management. The Senior Director leads through others with direct and/or indirect line management responsibilities for a group of PPMs.

Key Responsibilities:

Leading a team of PMs who:
  • Facilitate and/or contribute to asset strategy and evidence strategy, and lead development of the integrated project plan to ensure feasibility and alignment with TA strategy, prioritization, and pipeline performance objectives.
  • Own the single integrated plan that builds team commitment to shared goals with schedules and budgets based on clear dependencies and assumptions.
  • Lead options planning, generate recommendations, alternatives, and trade-offs to strengthen decision-making and optimize the project strategy.
  • Leads team preparation for governance decisions and owns schedule, risk, and budget inputs.
  • Identify opportunities to accelerate by challenging constraints that impact critical path and near-critical path activities.
  • Orchestrate seamless handoffs with focus on the critical path through proactive project plan monitoring, risk management, and cross-functional management of project issues with timely escalation to leadership as required.
  • The role will also ensure rigor, consistency, and compliance in established systems to drive timely, high-quality data and reporting in and across projects.
  • Build trusting relationships with the team and stakeholders to encourage transparency and collaboration. Use strong facilitation skills to lead regular project team meetings and apply consistent best practice for meeting agendas, actions, minutes, and other meeting documentation.
  • Establish and sustain agreed-upon ways of working for effective team communication, decisions, and conflict resolution.
  • As a visible PM leader, work with other PPM leaders and R&D stakeholders within and across TAs to ensure development of an industry-leading project management capability focused on accelerating pipeline projects.
  • Actively promote GSK's Code and values. Seek diverse perspectives, cultivate psychological safety, and ensure that all relevant voices are heard to strengthen outcomes and foster broad commitment. Work on any assignment as directed.
Job Posting Closing Date: 6th of August EOB

Basic Qualifications:
  • Master's Degree or equivalent experience in Lifesciences or Business
  • Experience in the field of Global Health, with senior director level project management experience in a matrix team environment in pharmaceutical R&D or related industry.
  • Experience in all aspects of project management based on established PM principles and methods (e.g. PMI/PMBOK), including scenario analysis, risk management, planning and execution, critical path management, lessons learned, communication and reporting.
  • Line and matrix leadership experience needed.
  • Experience building and maintaining project plans, budget and resource forecasts, and project management documentation (key assumptions, risks, etc.).
  • Experience using established PM planning tools, (Planisware, MS Project).
  • Experience facilitating project team meetings.
  • Experience preparing for governance interactions to enable funding, resourcing, and strategic and operational project decisions.
Project Management Expertise
  • Extensive project management knowledge and experience applied to a matrix team environment in pharmaceutical R&D as well as to mentor and coach less experienced team members.
  • Demonstrated expertise in all aspects of project management, based on established PM principles and methods (e.g. PMI/PMBOK).
  • Strong experience building and maintaining high-quality networked project plans, budget and resource forecasts, and project management documentation (RACI, communication plans, key assumptions, risk register, etc.).
  • Expert-level ability to communicate a clear and concise view of project status, critical path, and upcoming work to help the team and functions work in concert.
  • Experience leading and facilitating the identification, visualization, and acceleration of the project's critical path, including the ability to explain the critical path activities and dependencies to project stakeholders.
  • Expertise in managing project risks, ensuring that the risks across functions are appropriately identified, measured, managed, and communicated.
  • Expert proficiency in established PM planning tools.
  • Extensive experience facilitating and documenting effective project team meetings.
  • Experience leading or contributing to organizational project management capabilities and PM-related improvement initiatives as needed.
Drug Development Experience
  • Deep experience and understanding of drug development strategy (understanding of vaccines development is a plus).
  • Possesses research, development and organizational knowledge to serve as a mentor and thought partner to team members as they validate the operational feasibility of development strategies, challenge project team assumptions, and prompt subject matter experts to consider the impact of portfolio strategy and external landscape (regulatory, commercial, and competitive).
  • Extensive experience guiding teams to develop recommendations and options inclusive of benefit, cost, and risk trade-offs to realize the project strategy.
  • Extensive experience preparing for governance interactions to enable funding, resourcing, and strategic and operational project decisions.
Leadership & Interpersonal Skills
  • Knowledge of formal high-performance team concepts and experience leading or partnering with project leaders to establish and sustain a high-performance team environment.
  • Demonstrated ability to build trust and strengthen collaborative relationships with matrixed team members across teams, sub-teams, and functions.
  • Demonstrated ability to identify, capture, share, and apply learnings and best-practice across projects.
  • Demonstrated experience proactively collaborating with a wide variety of project, functional, and leadership stakeholders.
  • Knowledge of established models for critical thinking, innovation, negotiation, and influencing skills, and experience leading teams in the use of those models to achieve positive outcomes.
Preferred Qualifications:
  • Project Management Professional (PMP) in good standing.
  • Demonstrated understanding of organizational dynamics in a matrix environment preferred.
LI-GSK#

Why GSK?

Uniting science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together.

GSK is a global biopharma company with a special purpose - to unite science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together - so we can positively impact the health of billions of people and deliver stronger, more sustainable shareholder returns - as an organisation where people can thrive. We prevent and treat disease with vaccines, specialty and general medicines. We focus on the science of the immune system and the use of new platform and data technologies, investing in four core therapeutic areas (infectious diseases, HIV, respiratory/ immunology and oncology).

Our success absolutely depends on our people . click apply for full job details